THE national SATs boycott by primary school headteachers has been condemned by parents and council bosses in Coventry and Warwickshire.

Yesterday was the start of the industrial action which will see tens of thousands of 11-year-olds across the country denied the chance to sit the maths and English exams due to a dispute by the National Association of Headteachers (NAHT) and National Union of Teachers (NUT).

Both unions are against the exams because they believe they place unnecessary pressure on children, and disagree with the way the results are used to compile primary school league tables.

As the Telegraph reported last week, according to local NAHT officials, up to 20 schools in Coventry will be involved in the boycott of the tests, which run until Thursday.

Some 10 per cent of all 164 primary schools heads in Warwickshire have also decided not to administer the papers.

Di Palmer, of Shakespeare Street, Stoke, wrote to the Telegraph to state her opposition to the stance.

She said: “I hope that all Coventry schools will enable their children to sit their SATs this week.

“The teachers and children have worked hard on them and it would be a big let down if they could not finalise their course.”

Clare Allington, a mum-of-two of Hillfields who hit the Telegraph’s headlines after planning to put her daughter on eBay to find a benefactor to fund her education because she couldn’t get a suitable primary school place, said: “I disagree with the boycott because different schools are doing different things.

“They should all come out in solidarity if they want to scrap the SATs, but the way it’s going some children have been denied the chance to do the SATs when others are not.”

The action has also been condemned by Warwickshire County Council.

Bob Hooper, Warwickshire County Council’s acting head of education, said: “The local authority does not support the boycott and is concerned about pupils who have worked extremely hard to prepare for the tests and now will not take them.”

Paul Wyllie, Warwickshire NAHT representative and headteacher of Radford Semele Primary School in Radford Semele, Leamington, where the SATs are being boycotted, said: “It is disappointing that our local authority has chosen to publicly not support the action taken by NAHT and the NUT.

“Headteachers agree that testing is important but are totally against using the results to compile league tables that lead to negative, ill-informed judgements made on children’s achievements, their schools and communities.”